The second period of the Friday night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs became more about face-punching than hockey — which surprises no one considering the Leafs are the Leafs and they still believe the game is decided by whose knuckles drag lower.

But those were merely the scrumptious appetizers before the two heavyweights on the team, Erskine and Colton Orr, gave us the main course. I’ll end the lame metaphor here, but the entree was probably something meaty, with a heaping of gravy.

Erskine seems angry, no?

Andddddd here’s the KO punch.

After fights, players on the bench and the ice usually tap their sticks in salute. After this bout, however, both benches were more pumped up than usual, slamming the boards with their sticks like they had just watched the most entertaining Pay-Per-View of 2014.

Karl Alzner went a step further. Instead of slamming his stick, he bent over and started slamming the boards with his hands. I guess that’s louder. Or more manly.

“[Tom Wilson] and [John Erskine] did a great job, especially against great guys who can fight,” Ovechkin gushed. “They won the battles and it gave us more confidence. I think [Toronto] started playing rough against us and they showed them who the boss was.”

But we have something. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. Maybe the fact that we know Alzner did another one will warm our cold hearts for one more night.

Hana (welshhockeyfan) checked the other feeds of the game tonight on GameCenter and this is what she found on the French feed.

Alzner appears to be doing something with his arm. There’s some glove waving. Some gyrating. Maybe a rodeo thing? I have no idea. Can you guys use your imagination and figure it out? Share in the comments?

When Mathieu Perreault was traded to the Anaheim Ducks, the Caps lost more than a talented forward. Perreault was the terrier puppy of the Washington Capitals: small, frantic, usually bouncing with joy. His post-game celebrations became A Thing. But Perreault wasn’t the one who came up with the idea. It was his buddy Karl Alzner, who was inspired by YouTube videos of Seton Hall basketball player Peter Dill. Though they both made up elaborate rituals, it was Perreault who got all the attention. So, after a while, Karl stopped trying.

“I was like ‘Man, that’d be awesome if we did that!’” the mustachioed defenseman told me Wednesday. “I said, ‘Perry, you gotta watch this! It’d be awesome if we did this after a win’” Next game, it went to a shootout. He did it, I did it, and his got a ton of attention.”

This year, though, Perreault is gone and the Capitals have won a spade of games in the shootout. Therefore, it’s been up Alzner to carry the torch. His repertoire is more advanced than Perreault’s, with Alzner featuring distinct celebrations this year: Bow and Arrow, Thor’s Hammer, and the Hulk Hogan.

Nevertheless, Alzner says he wants to keep his celebrations low key — which seems paradoxical. Afraid of it becoming too commonplace, the 25-year-old said he didn’t plan on doing something crazy if the Caps won last week’s shootout in Phoenix.

“No!” Alzner exclaimed when I asked him if he liked all the fan attention it’s gotten — in part thanks to incessant GIFing. “I wanted it to die down. I don’t want it to be a big thing! It’s more just for the guys, just do it for fun. If we can get everybody doing something I think it’d be pretty funny.”

Alzner seems to have succeeded in keeping his choreographed jubilation discreet, at least among his teammates. At Kettler Capitals Iceplex Wednesday, I tried to ask a couple guys about the celebrations. No one seemed to know what I was talking about.

“No! No! I’ve never even seen it so I’m the wrong guy to ask,” forward Joel Ward said, raising an eyebrow. Marcus Johansson, too, was confused.

Like us, Alzner still misses the old #PerryCelly days — even if he’s now co-opted Perreault’s party piece.

“I hope that he’s still doing it,” Alzner said. “That’d be nice if he kept it going to another team. Someone should [GIF] that.”

Last season, Mathieu Perreault made Washington Capitals shootout victories a bit more memorable with his bench freak-outs, which we dubbed the #PerryCelly. It became A Thing. A bit less known, however, was the knowledge the whole #PerryCelly thing came about because of Karl Alzner.

One night, Alzner and Perreault were watching the YouTubes, as humans are like to do. They came across Peter Dill, a basketball player for Seton Hall. Dill was not very good– he tallied just a single basket in two years playing for the school– but boy did he get excited when his team scored.

“The guy would just go crazy, pretend he had Thor’s Hammer and he’d be smashing the ground,” Alzner told Chris Gordon last season. “Perry, I could just see his eyes, like ‘this is awesome!’”

“We should do that after we win games,” Perreault responded.

Perreault followed through on this promise after a shootout win over the Sabres, shaking and woo-ing with both his gloves up. A few games after that, the Caps beat the Islanders and Perreault did it again. Karl Alzner joined in that time, doing some mimed archery from the bench. No one really noticed, so Alzner gave up trying to keep up with the more popular gesticulations of his tiny, French Canadian teammate.

On Tuesday night, Alzner tried again. Perreault was gone, traded to the Ducks before the season started. Someone had to continue the tradition.

Watch the GIF closely. Jason Chimera gives Tom Wilson a shove of love. Steve Oleksy high-fives John Erskine. Poor Nate Schmidt has no idea what’s going on. Schmidt tries to hug Alzner, but no: Karl is very busy right now thank you. He is channeling his inner-Katniss Everdeen. Let him finish and he will get back to you.

Props to Karl Alzner for keeping the tradition going. Please give this story a bunch of attention so he keeps doing it forever.